In September 2008, I was diagnosed with triple negative breast cancer, a huge shock to me. Within you will find my journey into the scary world of cancer and my struggles to emerge from it.

Thursday, October 9, 2008

Recovery

I spent yesterday totally vegged out gobbling my viocodins but I am taking myself off of them and will take walks today. My throat doesn't hurt so much though I think I have a cold. All the blue dye should be out of me by now. The surgery area still is sore. I haven't looked under my dressings. They didn't seem to take any nodes out of my armpit. Shanna and Oliver hung around on my bed most of the day. Josh was supposed to come over but he 'forgot' which made me sad. He is coming over today instead. Naomi used my surgery as an excuse to skip bball but then didn't spend any time with me . Later Shanna and I saw a German movie, The Life of Others about a Stasi agent who was supposed to spy on a potentially dissident writer ends up subverting the system during the Communist era.

The next step is finding out the results of the surgery either tomorrow or Monday. Two big things: margins-whether they got most of the cancer cells out and my nodes. If the nodes are clean, there is a 95-98% chance things haven't spread. They already told me that by looking grossly my nodes look clean (80% confidence). If the margins are bad, they go in again and remove more tissue-they do this 30% of the time. If my nodes are bad, they go in and remove more of them. Even if everything is clean, they will wait until I can have another mammogram to check for calcifications that might have missed before leaving me alone. Obviously awaiting for this surgical report makes me nervous.

Steve and me

40th anniversary trip to Spain

About me

I am a mother of 3, wife of 1, and grandmother of 6. For years, I had been a medicinal chemist. Not long after I was retired early, I found myself with triple negative breast cancer. My struggles with it are in this blog along with the joys and trials of being a mother and grandmother. I love to be physically active, travel, read, and garden. Although my degrees are in chemistry and cellular biology not medicine, I keep up with the medical literature and report herein watching closely for good news against this deadly disease. As time goes on, my stay in Cancerland has become more a bad memory than a reality. This blog has since morphed into a photo blog in which I try to capture moments of beauty in my life.